What I find interesting about all this is that, until now, I didn’t really have a problem with Gruber having complete control over Markdown. I mean, it’d be unlikely that he would make a change that would adversely effect my ability to access (and write) things like this blog, right?

It’s now apparent that Gruber is willing to get Markdown stagnate as the Internet moves on.

Markdown will work just as well tomorrow as it does today. Because John Gruber doesn’t want to be beholden to a committee’s idea of what a Markdown spec ought to look like does not entail Markdown is going to break any time soon.

Markdown serves the agenda of John Gruber, and if he decides it’s in his interest to not update it, then he likely won’t. That doesn’t stop another software developer from building a successor.

It works great today and it will work great for many todays to come. But if ever a today should arrive when Markdown is insufficient, then surely some software developer should be capable of updating their content to fit. Writing in plain HTML in indignation will only make your job needlessly more difficult. Use what works while it works until it doesn’t. Then use your development skills to solve the problem if it ever arrives.